Men convicted in deadly crashes want early prison release

Updated 4:32 pm, Thursday, December 1, 2016

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two men behind bars for separate alcohol-related crashes, including one that claimed seven lives, are both seeking early release, a newspaper reports.

Brett Gerald was sentenced to 35 years in prison for a 2012 crash near Slaughter that killed seven people, and Joseph Branch is serving 7 1/2 years for killing a bicyclist in a 2012 crash in Baton Rouge, The Advocate reported (http://bit.ly/2gKWszR).

Both filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the state Department of Corrections, saying they are being forced to serve more time than they legally should.

On Wednesday, Gerald and Branch's attorneys argued in 19th Judicial District Court that both men should have to serve only 40 percent of their sentences.

They said both crashes predate a 2013 state Supreme Court ruling declaring vehicular homicide a crime that requires those convicted to serve at least 85 percent of the sentence.

According to Gerald's attorney, Andre Belanger, requiring his client to serve 85 percent of his sentence would "impose an additional term of imprisonment" for him and thus constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

"The law in effect at the time of the crime determines the penalty," Belanger said.

Vehicular homicide wasn't added to the list of crimes of violence in a revised Louisiana law until 2014.

Department of Corrections attorney Jonathan Vining told Robinson the department uses that list in determining whether an inmate must serve 40 percent or 85 percent of their sentence.

"Somebody's got to decide that," Vining said. "We're doing the best we can. We've done it correctly absent a court telling us otherwise."